USA > New York > Erie County > Centennial history of Erie County, New York : being its annals from the earliest recorded events to the hundredth year of American independence > Part 11
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This year too, I find the names of Samuel Beard, William Chapin, Asahel Powers, Jacob Durham and Samuel Edsall, re- corded as purchasers in Newstead, and of Andrew Dummett, Julius Keyes, Lemuel Harding, Jacob Shope, Zerah Ensign and others in Clarence.
All these settlements were in the townships through which the "Buffalo road" ran. But the hardy pioneers soon bore far- ther south in their search for land. In November, 1803, Alan- son Eggleston became the first purchaser in township Eleven, range Six (now Lancaster). There the land was put down to $2 per acre. Amos Woodward and William Sheldon also bought in Lancaster that month.
All these were north of the Buffalo Creek reservation, which cut the present county of Erie completely in twain. Several townships, however, were surveyed south of the reservation that year, and in the fall adventurous land-hunters found their way into the valley of Eighteen-Mile creek.
On the 3d of October, Didymus C. Kinney purchased part of lot Thirty-three, township Nine, range Seven, being now the south- west corner lot of the town of East Hamburg. He immediate- ly built him a cabin, and lived there with his family during the winter, being unquestionably the earliest pioneer of all Erie county, south of the reservation. Records and recollections agree on this point.
119
A BEGINNING IN THE SOUTH TOWNS.
Cotton Fletcher, who had surveyed the southern townships, purchased land in the same township as Kinney, but did not locate there till later ; neither did John Cummings, who took up the mill-site a mile and a half below Water Valley.
In November, 1803, too, Charles and Oliver Johnson, two brothers, made a purchase in the present town of Boston, near the village of Boston Center. Samuel Eaton bought farther down the creek. The price was $2.25 per acre. Charles, with his family, lived with Kinney through the winter, and moved on to his own place the next spring.
The Indians were frequently a resource of the early settlers who ran short of food. Charles Johnson, while at Kinney's, went to the Seneca village and bought six bushels of corn. He had snow-shoes for locomotion and a hand-sled for transporta- tion. As a load of three hundred and forty pounds sank the sled too far into the deep snow, he slung part of it on his back, and thus weighted and freighted he trudged through the forest to his home.
The snow-shoe was an important institution of that era. It consisted of a light, wooden frame, about two and a half feet long and fifteen inches wide, with bars across it, the intervening spaces being filled with tightly stretched green hide. With a pair of such articles strapped to his feet, the hunter or traveler strode defiantly over the deepest drifts, into which, without their support, he would have sunk to his waist at every step. Strange as it may seem, too, old hunters declare that these forest gun- boats did not seriously impede locomotion, and that the accus- tomed wearer could travel from three to four miles an hour with- out difficulty.
Kinney and Johnson with their families, in that solitary cabin in the valley of the Eightcen-Mile, were the only residents of Erie county south of the reservation in the winter of 1803-4.
120
WILLINK AND ERIE.
CHAPTER XVI.
1804 AND 1805.
Division of Batavia .- Willink .- Erie .- Settlement of Boston .- An Ancient Fort. -Ezekiel Smith. - David Eddy .- A Bride of 1804. - Aurora. - Jabez War- ren. - Joel Adams. - A Hand-sled Journey .- Lancaster .- Le Couteulx .- A Strange Object .- The Pratt Family .- A Contest of Courtesy .- First Post Office. Organization of Willink .- Erie Town-Book .- A Primitive Mill .- Deacon Cary .- William Warren .- First Grist Mill .- Williamsville.
The year 1804 was marked by a more decided advance than any previous one.
Turning first to municipal matters, we find that the town- meeting for Batavia was again held at Peter Vandeventer's, and that popular landlord was again chosen supervisor.
But at that session of the legislature a law was passed, (to take effect the next February,) dividing Batavia into four towns. The easternmost was Batavia, consisting of the first, second and third ranges of the Holland Purchase. Next came Willink, containing the fourth, fifth and sixth ranges. Then Erie, com- prising the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth ranges, the State reservation and the adjacent waters. The rest of the Purchase constituted the town of Chautauqua.
It will be seen that Willink, as thus organized, was eighteen miles wide and just about a hundred miles long, extending from Lake Ontario to Pennsylvania. It contained one range of town- ships cast of Erie county, the castern parts of Niagara and Cattaraugus counties, and the present towns of Clarence, New- stead, Lancaster, Alden, Elma, Marilla, Aurora, Wales, Colden, Holland, Sardinia and part of Concord.
The West Transit was the line between Willink and "Eric," which last town also stretched the whole width of the State. At its southern end it was twenty-four miles wide, but it was narrowed by the lake and the Canadian boundary, so that its northern half was only from eight to twenty miles wide. It comprised one short range of townships in Chautauqua county,
I2I
OLD FORT IN BOSTON.
the western part of Niagara and Cattaraugus, and in Erie county the city of Buffalo and the towns of Grand Island, Tonawanda, Amherst, Cheektowaga, West Seneca, Hamburg, East Ham- burg, Evans, Eden, Boston, Brant, North Collins, Collins, and the west part of Concord.
This town of Erie has had a somewhat curious history, having been completely obliterated not only from the list of political organizations, but from the memories of its own oldest inhabi- tants. The story of its early annihilation will be told in due time.
Next to East Hamburg, Boston was the first town settled south of the reservation. In March, 1804, Charles Johnson, having erected a cabin, left his friend Kinney's and moved four miles farther into the wilderness. His brother Oliver, Samuel Eaton and Samuel Beebe followed a little later.
The Johnsons and some of their neighbors had less trouble clearing their land than most settlers in the south towns. Where they located, close to Boston Center, there was a prairie of fifty acres. Close by there was another which occupied thirty acres except a few trees, and there were some smaller ones. In the thirty-acre one there was an old fort, enclosing a space of about two and a half acres. It consisted of an embankment which even then was two feet high, with a ditch on the outside nearly two feet deep. There were a few trees growing on the embank- ment, one of them being a chestnut from two to two and a half feet in diameter.
From this fort there was a narrow artificial road running southwest nearly to Hamburg village. On dry ground little work had been done, but on wet land the evidences that a road had been made were plain for a long time. From Hamburg village to the lake there is a narrow natural ridge, suitable for a road, and on which one is actually laid out, called the "Ridge road."
It looks as if some band of Indians, (or of some other race,) had preferred to reside on the lake shore for pleasure and conven- ience, but had constructed this fortress between the hills, with a road leading to it, as a place of safety from their focs.
In this vicinity, as elsewhere throughout the county, were found large numbers of sharpened flint-stones, with which it was sup-
9
122
BRIDE OF 1804.
posed the Indians skinned decr. The largest were six or seven inches long and two inches broad, the sides being oval and the edges sharpened. If the Indians had ever used them, as scems probable, they had thrown them aside as soon as knives were brought among them by the Europeans.
I think that John Cummings located himself this spring on his land below Water Valley, becoming the first settler in the present town of Hamburg.
That same spring Deacon Ezekiel Smith came from Vermont, with his two sons, Richard and Daniel, and bought a tract of land two miles southeast of Kinney's, in what has since been known as the Newton neighborhood. A young man named David Eddy came with him and selected land near Potter's Corners. Smith returned for his family, leaving his sons to clear land.
In September he came back, with his wife, several daughters, and two or three others, and five more sons, Amasa, Ezekiel, Zenas, Amiah and Almon. Such a family was of itself enough to start a pretty good settlement. Four of the seven sons were married. With them came another big Vermont family, headed by Amos Colvin, with his sons Jacob, George, Luther, Amos and Isaac.
One of Deacon Smith's daughters, Sarah, was then a bride of seventeen, the wife of Jacob Colvin. She is still living, at the age of eighty-nine, and well-known throughout East Hamburg as "Aunt Sarah Colvin." When I saw her in the summer of 1875, she was perfectly erect, active about the house, and showed less of the marks of age than most women of seventy. More than the allotted span of man's life has passed away since she came, a married woman, into the wilderness ; she has seen the wolves and bears prowling around the cabins of the earliest set- tlers; she has seen the forest give place to broad and fertile fields ; she passed, more than sixty years ago, through the alarms of border war, and still remains a remarkable example of the vigorous pioneer women of Erie county.
With the same colony came David Eddy, his brother Aaron, . and his brother-in-law Nathan Peters, with his sister Mary as housekeeper. Mrs. Colvin in describing the journey mentions that Mary Eddy, a young woman of some education, and a
123
SETTLEMENT OF AURORA.
pioneer school-teacher in both Hamburg and Aurora, walked every step of the way from Buffalo to Kinney's place on the Eighteen-Mile.
The Eddys went to the land selected by David near East Hamburg village, and were the first settlers in that vicinity. John Sumner moved there that year or the next. Obadiah Baker bought there that year, and soon became a permanent resident.
In June, 1804, Joel Harvey located at the mouth of the Eight- een-Mile on the west side, being the first settler in the present town of Evans, and the farthest one up the lake in the county of Erie.
Meanwhile another settlement had been commenced farther east. Jabez Warren, when cutting out the Big Tree road, must have been extremely well pleased with the land about Aurora, for on the 17th of April, 1804, he took a contract for four entire lots, comprising the greater part of the site of the village of East Aurora, and a large territory adjoining it on the north and west. The tract contained 1,743 acres, being the largest amount purchased in the county by one person at any one time. The price was $2 per acre.
The same day Nathaniel Emerson, Henry Godfrey, (a son-in- law of Warren,) Nathaniel Walker, John Adams and Joel Adams took contracts covering the whole ,creek valley, for three miles above East Aurora, at $1.50 per acre. This was the cheapest that any land was sold in the county, though it included some of the best.
In May Rufus and Taber Earl located in the southeast cor- ner of East Aurora village. Joseph Sears is said to have pur- chased lot 23, since known as "The Square," but though he afterward settled on it he remained but a short time.
Four or five other persons made purchases during the summer, but out of the whole list, though most of them became perma- nent residents, only one, Joel Adams, remained with his family through the winter. Taber Earl, however, built him a house and moved into it immediately after buying his land. His wife was the pioneer woman in the county, south of the reservation and east of the West Transit. But Earl with his family win- tered in Buffalo.
124
A HAND-SLED JOURNEY.
Warren cleared a small space and built him a log house at the west end of East Aurora, but did not occupy it that year.
Joel Adams, already a middle-aged man, built him a cabin on his land, where he worked alone through the summer. In the fall he brought on his family, except the oldest son. Besides him there were five hardy boys. On his way Mr. Adams was obliged to leave a bag of meal at a mill near Warsaw, the hor- rible roads being impassable for any but the lightest loads.
In the winter the family ran out of breadstuffs. Thereupon the two oldest boys set out on foot after that bag of meal, twenty-five miles away. They secured the prize and brought it through in safety on a hand-sled, though the necessary slowness of their progress compelled them to sleep out one or two nights in the snow.
Such were the tasks of the youth of that period. Hardship, however, does not seem to have had any deleterious effects on the Adams boys, for three of them, Enos, Luther and Erasmus, lived to extreme old age, being well known to all citizens of Aurora. Erasmus, the youngest, still survives at the age of eighty-five, one of the most active men in town. On going to see him, a year ago, to get some reminiscences of his early life, I found he had taken a walk for exercise to a friend's some three miles distant ; so I was obliged to postpone the interview.
In connection with the first settlement of Aurora, it may be noted that there, as in so many other places, were found indica- tions of ancient occupancy. A little north of the village of East Aurora, and close to the north line of the town, are sev- eral abrupt hills, almost surrounded by muddy ponds and by low grounds once undoubtedly covered with water. Two of these hills, thus conveniently situated for defense, were found fortified by circular breastworks, resembling those in Boston.
There is also a tradition of bones of "giant size " being dug up there at an early day, but I am somewhat skeptical, not as to the bones, but the size. Exaggeration is extremely easy where there is no exact, scientific measurement.
Silas Hill, John Felton, Thomas Hill, Charles Bennett, Cyrus Hopkins and others were added to the list of purchasers in Newstead this year, and all of those named became permanent settlers.
125
SETTLERS IN THE NORTH TOWNS.
In Clarence, there were David Bailey, Peter Pratt, Isaac Van- orman, Daniel Robinson, Riley Munger, David Hamlin, Jr., and others. It was probably in 1804 that Asa Ransom built a saw- mill on the little stream to which his name had been given.
Timothy S. and Orlando Hopkins removed to what is now Amherst this year, and among the new comers in that township were Samuel· McConnell, who located near Williamsville, Caleb Rogers, Stephen Colvin, Jacob Vanatta, and Joel Chamberlain.
Occasional German names will have been seen among the emigrants to the north towns. These, however, were all " Penn- sylvania Germans," or " Mohawk Dutch;" that is, persons of Ger- man or Dutch descent, whose families had been established in Pennsylvania or the Mohawk Valley for two or more genera- tions. There was not then a solitary emigrant directly from Ger- many in the county, nor for a long time afterwards.
Among the purchasers in Lancaster in 1804 were James Woodward, Warren Hull, Matthew Wing, Joel Parmalee and Lawson Egberton. Mr. James Clark, of Lancaster, states that he has ascertained that James and Amos Woodward were the first settlers in Lancaster, locating at Bowman's Mills, and it was probably in 1804 that they came. Hull, Eggleston, James and Luther Young, and Parmalee, all settled east of Bowman's Mills shortly after the Woodwards.
In Buffalo there was a decided development during the year 1 804, and several men who exercised a strong influence for many years then became residents.
One of these was Mr. LeCouteulx, whose full appellation was Louis Stephen Le Couteulx de Caumont, a French gentleman of good family, then forty-eight years of age, who had for sev- enteen years been a citizen of the United States. A gentle and genial spirit, his placid face, mild blue eyes, gray hair carefully parted in the middle, neat dress and precise manners scemed somewhat out of place amid the stumps, Indians and frontiers- men of New Amsterdam, yet his aimiability and integrity gained him many friends, and his good business habits procured him reasonable success, and in his old age even affluence. Soon after his arrival he built him a frame house on Crow (Exchange) street, near Willink avenue, where he resided, and in one part of which he established a drug-store, the first in the county.
126
BUFFALO PRICES.
Some of the Buffalo land was as cheap as any in the county. N. W. Sever bought two outer lots containing sixty-four acres in the bend of the creek, south of the Ohio basin, for $1.81 per acre.
What is more remarkable, outer lot 84, comprising several acres between Willink avenue and Buffalo creek, (that is to say west of Main street,) now occupied by Central Wharf and long rows of warehouses, was sold in 1804 to Samuel McConnell for $1.50 per acre ! Sanguine as were Ellicott's ideas regarding the future of Buffalo, he supposed that the business would all be done north of the hill at Exchange street, and in one letter ex- pressed his belief that the flats below would, when drained, make excellent meadows !
Inner lots, near the corner of Willink avenue and Crow street, which was the centre of business, sold at one hundred to two hundred dollars each. Payments of $10 to $30 in hand were usually made, the rest being distributed through several install- ments. Merchant Maybee paid $135 for Lot 35, corner of Wil- link avenue and Seneca street, running through to Cayuga. He paid $15 down, $12 the next year, and then payment was stop- ped till 1815, when some one else took a deed.
Great care was taken to encourage actual settlers, and when Zerah Phelps bought inner lot No. I, lying just east of the site of the Mansion House, he had to agree to build a house twenty- four feet square, and clear off half an acre of land. Similar agreements were made with other city purchasers.
Outside the village limits, but within the present city, Rowland Cotton bought a hundred and forty-three acres at what is now the corner of Main and Amherst streets, for $3.50 an acre.
Abner Gilbert took lot Thirty-four, now the southeast corner of Main and Utica streets, for five dollars an acre. There was an Abner Gilbert in the family whose captivity I have before related, and it is quite possible that he returned to inhabit the scene of his early hardships, though there is no evidence of it but the name. He certainly did not remain long.
In accordance with the previous arrangement with Ellicott, though apparently it was somewhat modified, William Johnston received a deed of several valuable inner lots, and of outer lot 93, comprising forty acres south of Crow and cast of Onondaga (Washington) streets.
127
A STRANGE OBJECT.
One day in September, 1804, a hitherto unknown phenome- non came slowly swaying down Willink avenue, picking its way among the stumps, and curving around the hillocks in that primeval thoroughfare. It was a carriage-a private carriage -- the first one ever seen in Erie county, and probably the first that ever crossed the Genesce. It was a most luxurious vehicle, ac- cording to the ideas of that day, new and strongly built, its drab- .
colored sides splashed with the mud of numberless mudholes through which it had passed since leaving the far-off State of Vermont.
As it wended its tedious course down the wide highway now bordered by lofty blocks and palatial residences, we may be sure that from the few'log cabins and diminutive frames on either side every head was thrust forth in scrutinizing wonder, while the red men who were ever strolling about the village uttered their "Ughs" with more than ordinary emphasis, as they gazed on this novel institution of the pale-faces. From the carriage win- dows peered the equally curious faces of several children, gazing with wide-open eyes at the strange scenes on either side, while behind them appeared a woman's thoughtful, perhaps saddened, features. One or two open wagons followed, containing some of the male members of the new family and an ample supply of furniture.
The vehicles turned into Crow street, and halted before John Crow's log-and-frame mansion. The family which then alighted was one whose members and descendants have ever since, in successive generations, been prominent in the social and com- mercial history of Buffalo, that of Captain Samuel Pratt.
While on his way to and from Detroit, on a fur-buying trip, in 1802-3, Captain P. had been so strongly impressed with the commercial advantages of the little log village at the foot of Lake Erie that he determined to locate there, and engage in the fur-trade. As he had reached the age of forty, had a large faniily and was possessed of a comfortable property, his eastern friends thought his proposed removal little less than lunacy.
He, however, persevered, had a carriage built on purpose, so that his family might be as comfortable as possible on their long journey, and in due time they drew up before Crow's tavern.
As they did so they were met by Erastus Granger, the super-
128
A CONTEST OF COURTESY.
intendent of Indian affairs, who greeted the captain with the utmost warmth, made his politest bows to the lady, and imme- diately placed his room in the tavern at the disposal of the family while awaiting the preparation of their residence. Mr. Pratt was profuse in his thanks for this great kindness, Mr. Granger equally profuse in assurances that he was the party most honored by the arrangement. The salaams on both sides were numerous and profound.
Meanwhile the mother and children peered into the apart- ment over which so much politeness was being expended. They discovered a room some twelve feet square, with rough log walls, a floor of split logs, and a bedstead of poles in the corner. Mrs. Pratt's face grew sad at the dismal prospect, and at least one of the children could hardly keep from laugh- ing over the seeming disproportion between the gentleman's compliments and the subject of them. None the less Mr. Granger's offer was generous and timely, and his apartment was probably the most elegant one in Buffalo.
The only survivor of this scene old enough to remember it is Mrs. Esther Pratt Fox, then a girl of six, now a most amiable lady of seventy-eight, who still laughs when she describes the politeness expended over the log room in Crow's tavern.
Captain Pratt soon built him a frame house, the first one of any considerable size in the village, and also a store in which he began trading with both Indians and whites. His business, es- pecially with the former, soon became extensive, principally in buying furs, and during all his residence he maintained their unwavering confidence.
The only other store in the village, and in fact in the county, at this time, was that of Sylvanus Maybee, unless Vincent Grant already had one.
The only other event it is necessary to notice in this year is the establishment of a post-route and post-office. A law was passed in the spring, establishing a route from Canandaigua to Ft. Niagara, by way of Buffalo Creek. In September following it was put in operation, and Erastus Granger was appointed the first postmaster in Erie county, his office being denominated " Buffalo Creek." Even Congress would not recognize the un- fortunate name of New Amsterdam.
129
WILLINK AND ERIE.
The new postmaster's duties were not onerous. Once a week a solitary horseman came from Canandaigua, with a pair of sad- dle-bags containing a few letters and a few diminutive news- papers scarcely larger than the letters, and once a week he returned from Fort Niagara with a still smaller literary freight.
During 1805 there is no record of any new townships being occupied, but the work of improvement progressed rapidly around the settlements already made.
In accordance with the law of the previous year, the towns of Willink and Erie were organized in the spring of 1805. The first town-meeting in Willink was held at Vandeventer's, all the voters being north of the reservation, except Joel Adams in Aurora and Roswell Turner in Sheldon, Wyoming county. The following officers were elected :
Supervisor, Peter Vandeventer ; Town Clerk, Zerah Ensign ; Assessors, Asa Ransom, Aaron Beard, John J. Brown ; Collec- tor, Levi Felton ; Commissioners of Highways, Gad Warner, Charles Wilber, Samuel Hill, Jr .; Constables, John Dunn, Ju- lius Keyes; Overseers of the Poor, Henry Ellsworth and Otis Ingalls.
The first town-meeting in the town of Erie was held at Crow's tavern, but the record of it was destroyed, with nearly all others pertaining to that town, in 1813. In fact, notwith- standing the law, it would be difficult to establish the actual, organized existence of such a town, were it not for a rough little memorandum-book, preserved among the treasures of the Buffalo Historical Society. It is marked "Erie Town Book," but it does not show any of the usual town-records ex- cept receipts from licenses to sell liquor.
Five of these were recorded in 1805, three being to persons in the present county of Erie and two at Lewiston. There was one in Buffalo to Joshua Gillett, and one to "The Contractors by S: Tupper." There must, however, have been others. Cer- tainly Landlord Crow must have had one. The price of licenses was five dollars each. Orlando Hopkins was collector of the town that year, and the whole general tax was a hundred and fifty dollars.
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